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The System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Analyzer is your first line of defense in troubleshooting issues with System Center 2012 SP1 server-side components. The System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Analyzer is a diagnostic tool that you can use to evaluate important configuration settings for computers that are running any of the following System Center 2012 SP1 components: Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), Service Manager, Orchestrator (plus Service Provider Foundation), Configuration Manager, and Data Protection Manager (DPM).

Previously, users who wanted to take advantage of this functionality had to download and install best practice analyzers (BPAs) for each System Center component. With the release of System Center 2012 SP1, users can now use a single model (called the System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Analyzer) within Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer 2.0 that automatically detects and scans all System Center 2012 SP1 server-side components.

System requirements

The following items must be pre-installed on the server or client computer on which System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Analyzer will be installed:

Operating system supported by System Center 2012 SP1 For a list of supported operating systems, see System Requirements for System Center 2012 SP1. Note — System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Analyzer does not support Windows Server 2012 Core.

The VMM team has released a new VMM Console update package (KB2742355) on Microsoft Update to address this issue. The old VMM Console update package (KB2724538) has been removed.

The Update Rollup 2 KB article has also been updated to reflect the new package number and the following note has been added to the VMM installation instructions section:

Note An issue was discovered with the VMM Console update (KB2724538) on non-English versions. A new VMM console update (KB2742355) has been released on Microsoft Update. This update will be available to all VMM languages regardless of whether the old console update (KB2724538) is installed. It is recommended to install this update on all VMM languages.

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First we should understand that SCVMM Self-Service portal is using ActiveX controls to connect the remote VM.

The Self-Service Portal is accessed using Internet Explorer which requires ActiveX controls to provide remote access to virtual machines on managed hosts.

When a user uses the Self-Service Portal to view or connect to any of their virtual machines, they will be prompted to install the appropriate ActiveX control in Internet Explorer on their local machine.

Self-Service Portal will use ActiveX control VMMCtlAx and VMRCActiveXClient to connect with the remote VM, both ActiveX control are using RDP protocol to talk with remote VM.

Reason: U1 is using machines from external world to connect to ssp.company.lcl -> Active X got installed on U1 machine -> for connect operation- This active X instead of going through Website directly goes to host for connect operation -> As Hyper V and U1 are on different network -> it is not working.

Workaround : You can check if somehow you can provide direct connection of host to U1 user machine.

Based on this behavior, we can learn that we cannot publish Self-Service Portal via ISA to connect VM via HTTPs.

Import virtual machines: Allows DCIT (Datacenter) administrators to re-import virtual machines that were removed from the self-service portal and also import virtual machines created outside the portal but managed by VMM.

Expire virtual machines: This feature provides the user the ability to set an expiration date for the virtual machines that are being created or imported so that the virtual machines auto-delete after the set date. This feature also provides users the flexibility (through role-based access) to set or change the expiration date for the virtual machine.

Move infrastructure between business units: This feature allows DCIT(Datacenter) administrators to move an infrastructure from one business unit to another when the system is in Maintenance Mode.

The VMMSSP 2.0 SP1 Beta review program is now open.

Tell us what you think!Download the beta and provide us with your feedback, especially in the areas of its usefulness, usability, and impact. Send an email with your input to sspfeedback@microsoft.com.

Your input helps to make the guides we publish as helpful and useful as possible. We look forward to hearing from you!

Kinds of Feedback:

We would especially appreciate feedback in the following areas:

· Usefulness: What portions of the tool are the most useful to your organization?

· Usability: Is the solution is easy to setup and neviagate through?

· Impact: Do you anticipate that this tool will save you time in your organization? Has this tool had a positive influence on your opinion of the Microsoft technologies it addresses?

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When you deploy or migrate a virtual machine to a host, the evaluation and selection of the most suitable host for the virtual machine is known as virtual machine placement, or placement. During placement, Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) evaluates the suitability of available hosts and assigns each host a rating of 0 stars (not suitable) through 5 stars (very suitable), in half-star increments. Each host’s rating is based on several factors, including the virtualization software on the host, the hardware and networking configuration of the host and the virtual machine, the virtual machine’s resource requirements, and whether the virtual machine is highly available.

A new feature in VMM 2008 R2 is the host compatibility check, which VMM performs before migrating a virtual machine that is deployed on a Hyper-V host cluster created in Windows Server 2008 R2. To prevent a migration from failing, the host compatibility check ensures that the destination host’s hardware, such as CPU model, is compatible with the source host. VMM uses the Hyper-V compatibility check API in Windows Server 2008 R2 and the VMware compatibility check APIs to ensure that hardware requirements are met for each type of virtualization software. This feature is not available for failover clusters created in Windows Server 2008.

Using Host Ratings to Select Hosts

You can establish customized default criteria for VMM to use when rating hosts during placement. This helps you to place virtual machines on the most suitable host. You can specify the placement goal that VMM should use to calculate hosts ratings. The placement goals are described in the following table:

Goal

Description

Strategy

Resource maximization

Consolidates multiple low-utilization workloads onto a single host. Virtual machines are placed on that host until the limits are reached.

Use this option if you want to fully utilize one host before assigning virtual machines to additional hosts

Load balancing

Minimizes the processing load on any one host.

Use this option if you want to distribute the performance load of your virtual machines evenly across your hosts.

You can also specify the relative importance of each of the following resources that VMM should use when rating hosts:

CPU utilization

Memory utilization

Disk I/O

Network utilization

How VMM Rates Hosts

VMM evaluates all hosts within the selected host group and also any hosts contained in child host groups. The ratings are based on the default placement settings and do not change based on the ratings of other hosts.

Each host must be able to accommodate the host reserves and the maximum resource allocation for all of the hosted virtual machines. Host reserves are the resources set aside on the physical host computer for the host operating system.

Measuring Resource Usage

VMM measures CPU usage, memory usage, disk I/O, and network usage for each host approximately every 10 minutes and recalculates the average rating. The reported usage is an average of all measurements taken since the last action that changed the host’s resource usage. Actions that reset data on a host include the following:

New Virtual Machine

Deploy Virtual Machine

Store Virtual Machine

Migrate Virtual Machine

Delete Virtual Machine

Virtual Machine Turned On

Virtual Machine Turned Off, Stopped, Paused, or Saved State

Calculating Host Ratings

VMM calculates host ratings in half-star increments on a scale from 0 stars through 5 stars. Ratings are based on individual hosts and not on the relative suitability of all available hosts. VMM calculates host ratings according to specific formulas, described in the following table:

Conditions That Cause a Zero Rating

If a host fails to meet one or more specific requirements, it will receive a host rating of 0 stars. Any available host which meets these requirements will automatically receive a rating of greater than 0 stars. The requirements are described in the following table:

Requirement

Description

Physical hard disk space

The host must have at least one hard disk with enough space to hold the total hard disk space required by the virtual machine. With dynamic hard disks, the current hard disk size is used, not the maximum hard disk size.

Memory

The memory required for the virtual machine must be less than the current amount of memory available on the host. A host must have sufficient free memory to start the virtual machine.

Network connectivity

The virtual networks required by the virtual machine are checked against the virtual networks available on the host. The host must contain all of the virtual networks required for the virtual machine. If you use network tags, the network location and the network tag for the virtual and the host machines must be identical, or the host rating will be 0 stars. For more information, see Configuring Virtual Networks in VMM.

VMM will block migration of virtual machines from a Hyper-V host to a host that is running different virtualization software.

Virtualization software compatibility

VMM will block migration of a virtual machine with specific features that are not allowed by the virtualization software that is running on a host. For example, VMware hosts do not allow IDE hard disks, and Hyper-V hosts do not allow booting up from a SCSI hard disk.

How to Interpret Host Ratings

Host ratings are recommendations based on default criteria that you can customize or override during placement. Host ratings do not include every relevant piece of information. For example, the host rating calculations do not include the speed of network connections.

You can place a virtual machine on a host regardless of its rating if the host has enough physical disk hard space and memory available. However, placing a virtual machine on a host with a higher rating provides better performance for the virtual machine.

Guidelines for Attaining Accurate Host Ratings

Use the following best practices to help ensure accurate host ratings during placement.

Configure Default Virtual Machine Paths

Add default virtual machine paths for each volume of a host on which you want to store virtual machines. You must do this if you plan to support virtual machine self-service. For more information about how to add a virtual machine path to the host, see How to Set Placement Options for a Host. For more information about virtual machine self-service, see About Virtual Machine Self-Service.

9. Run the Upgrade System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 wizard to upgrade instances of the VMM Administrator Console and the VMM Self-Service Portal on any other computers that will communicate with the upgraded VMM server

10. After upgrading VMM, all hosts and library servers must be refreshed to show the correct status. To perform a manual host refresh, in the upgraded Administrator Console, in Hosts view, select one or more hosts, and then, in the Actions pane, click Refresh. You can check the status of the host refresh in Jobs view.

11. After a host has been refreshed, it will have a status of Needs Attention, except for the VMM server if it is also serving as a host. This is because the stand-alone hosts still have the previous version of the VMM agent installed. These hosts are fully functional, so you do not have to immediately update the agents on all hosts.

12. To update the hosts, in the VMM Administrator Console, in Hosts view, select one or more hosts with a status of Needs Attention, and then in the Actions pane, click Update Agent.

You can check the status of the agent update in Jobs view. When the refresh is complete, the host status will be OK.

13. To perform a manual library refresh, open Library view, select one or more library servers, and then, in the Actions pane, click Refresh. If you do not perform a manual refresh, the default library refresh interval is 1 hour. You can check the status of library refreshes in Jobs view.

14. After the library refresh, in the VMM Administrator Console, navigate to Administration view, and then click Managed Computers.

15. Select one or more computers that have a role of Library and an agent status of Upgrade Available, and then, in the Actions pane, click Update Agent.

When the update is complete, all stand-alone library servers will have a version status of Up-to-date. For a highly available library server, the version status of each cluster node is updated after the next library refresh.

About Zeros & Ones

Hi, I’m Mohamed Fawzi and I am working as Senior Infrastructure System Engineer for LINK development company. This blog covers Virtualization technology and Cloud Computing.
*All the usual disclaimers are applied :)
The information in this weblog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer. It is solely my opinion.